Humanism

[DavisModerator]

Let’s keep this as non-contentious as possible: Take all women who are older than 45 and working in their career and men who are older than 45 and working in their career. Let’s also assume that most of the numerous studies that show no significant difference when comparing the productivity of men and women in comparable positions as just maybe possibly true (actually it often tilts a little towards women but…let’s not be contentious). Let’s assume also that of the studies that show education level and experience levels in office work, per job title, is comparable between men and women… that not every one of those studies is flawed and clearly wrong. So you have women who are past child-bearing age and maternity-leave age and likely past their unpaid infant raising age…and you have men who are past paternity-leave age.

So, same ability to work, same productivity, same education, same skills, same experience, no babies on the way and very few other excuses left. And yet women over 45 still make less than men do, in some countries they make considerably less…in comparable positions and despite endless studies showing equal competency and work results.

Here is the question:

If full equal pay of for all ages is not on the agenda at all (won’t be brought up for years) and there is a referendum on equal pay for men and women over 45 (in comparable positions) would you support such a law? Would you vote yes?

Second question:

If equal pay between White people and black people in comparable job positions were on the referendum question (and yes there is a measurable and shocking disparity in this field as well)…would you vote to deal with race-based salary discrimination?

Third question:

Imagine it was demonstrated that people with brown eyes, shockingly made 20% less than those with green/blue/other coloured eyes, for no logical reason. I know its strange but just pretend this is a fact. Would you vote to end eye-colour based wage discrimination?

[Belle RoseParticipant]

@davis The pay gap that exists between men and women is not only because of gender. There are so many other factors involved. It’s really a myth that needs to be thrown OUT for there to be any meaningful discussion on the issue

[_Robert_Participant]

If you are a manager for a large US corporation you would know there is an assigned pay range for each job classification and the place in that range a worker falls is based on performance and years of service per company policy. If you have a minority that performs well you have hit the proverbial gold mine as a manger.

Now for my former situation as a project engineer/manger.  I have found that there is a fanatical group of super engineers that work 50 hours a week and file for patents like crazy. They really have no social life. It turns out that they are usually white guys. I reward them per company policy. Now I have a few women who are very capable and average about 38 hours a week. They don’t hit 100% of their goals. I also have a black guy who has been promoted beyond his ability by other managers. He knows it and feels bad about it. He will not be getting big raises from me until he improves.

So is this law gonna force corporations to give equal raises to underperforming minority professionals?

I have also noticed that highly performing female and minorities are fast tracked to the top ranks.  The director of engineering is a woman in her mid thirties. No male that held that position during my tenure was that young.

[DavisModerator]

Both of you have spectacularly avoided the question. Ivy…I’m really fascinated by your claim that gender wage disparity isnt ALL about gender. I’m curious what possible factor outside of gender would explain gender discrimination.

Robert I don’t know what your answer is. Your response is entirely made up of your own personal experience in one company based on your evaluation of workers. There are many reasons why some groups of people don’t put in lots of overtime ranging from never being offered that overtime, never having been rewarded for extra work, a hostile environment during after-hours, bias in evaluations etc. This is all speculation. And I was very careful when I phrased my question earlier. I didn’t mention anyone being promoted or moving up the ladder. There are documented cases of workplaces such as call centres where the women objectively perform as good if not better (by means of counting tasks performed or number of satisfied customers) and yet they make less than the men. Promotions and even extra hours are irrelevant. Same position, same work, same productivity, same quality of work (possibly even better) but less money.

There is no excuse in these cases but it still happens. In a case like this, as the CEO of a corporation would you set a policy where if a group of people demonstrably do the same work but get less salary…be rectified?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Jordan Peterson maintains that it’s a jobs gap rather than a pay gap.  I.e. women are paid the same as men, but they tend to end up in less high-paying jobs.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

but they tend to end up in less high-paying jobs…….

And the men who “end up” in those same jobs still tend to be paid more than the women who do.

[DavisModerator]

And the men who “end up” in those same jobs still tend to be paid more than the women who do.

Indeed Reg. Your guy, @simon, is only half right. Not only do they get fewer high level jobs (even the unmarried career dedicators) but also make less in those jobs than non-women do.

None of this is to say that men don’t deserve the salaries they get. We all deserve livable wages. However when a group of people ever systematically get less for the same effort, then efforts need to be made to close that gap. Some efforts are successful (targeted job adds, more women doing job interiews,  objecctive methods for candidate evalution, nameless and photo-free resumés (quite important) and some have pretty mixed results (afirmative action, mandatory quotas). Men shouldn’t have to make less because of this, women should, assuming their output  is qualitatively and quantitatively on par, make just as much. This applies to minorities such as African Americans, in similar jobs with similar productivity.

A lot of resistance that comes to even “believing” that there just might be something even slightly true to this (besides the studies by labour scholars and professionals) is the problem of assumed blame. This is quite obvious by the flurry of bad “excuses” or “yeah but…” replies that follow these claims. They are patently defensive and full of old stereotypes. The idea that if you are part of a group that get a fair salary, while others don’t…that somehow you are responsible for that…or at least people assuming they are being blamed (even if they aren’t). That you’ve helped make the system work that way. You’re complicit in this.  You don’t deserve the salary you make. You make too much. You’re being unfairly rewarded. You don’t work as hard as you think you do. Etc This of course is bullshit, pointing out a wage disparity is not blanket blaming those who get fair wages nor accusing everyone who benefits. Just as pointing out the very high level of sexual assault isn’t the same as saying “all men are rapists” or “you are bad because you are a man”, or pointing out unfairly long prison sentences for black Americans (for similar crimes) doesn’t mean “you’re white and you’re responsible for that injustice” or “you should feel ashamed  because you are cauasian”. That’s total nonsense but it is what is behind the extreme resistance to recognize these problems and deal with them…and people have to be very very careful when putting their words together when  to avoid such reactions as much as possible when pointing out these problems.

Good news is, the gap has somewhat shrunk over time, as is the case with rape denial and injustice denial.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

Here is the question:

If full equal pay of for all ages is not on the agenda at all (won’t be brought up for years) and there is a referendum on equal pay for men and women over 45 (in comparable positions) would you support such a law? Would you vote yes?

I would read the bill in full detail, look for hidden agendas and ulterior motives. I would like to see at what expense this “law” would provide protections. Basically what I’m saying is it would really depend on what the actual bill says and how they plan on implementing these changes. Then I would make my decision at that point.

Exact same answer for question two.

Third question:

I would have to look at the data that supports that claim.

On all three of these answers I would definitely tilt toward favoring the law(s) as long as it’s done right….

But I trust our country’s ability to pass laws that are truly good for us about as much as I would trust Donald Trump to tell the truth for a day.

 

 

 

[Belle RoseParticipant]

@davis

I’m really fascinated by your claim that gender wage disparity isnt ALL about gender. I’m curious what possible factor outside of gender would explain gender discrimination.

IQ, personality traits, personal family life style preferences, learning disabilities or lack there of, mental health diagnoses or lack there of, motivation, learning styles, geographic location, economy, childhood environment/upbringing/socialization….I could go on but this is just a sample to get us started.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

Davis, I can give you an example from my own life. The data supports this too. You know I’m a single mom with a special needs son who needs me in ways that I have to be there for him after school, evenings, weekends…I have been presented with many amazing opportunities to make a six-figure income or even higher. I have the intelligence ability and skill to do so. But I also have the obligation to be his mother. I know that he will eventually grow up and be an adult, and I will be in my 40s, and at that point I could make the career the center of my universe. Until that time… I can’t work 80 hours a week. And if I can’t work 80 hours a week how can I compete with men who do? I can’t. When I get to the place where I can work 80 hours a week, then we’ll see what’s up….

In some fields and age demographics women actually make more than men for the same job…

So that’s really what I’m trying to say, you can’t just say that men make more than women, and there’s a pay gap and we need to fix it. There’s other things we need to fix first. We need to fix the fact that we have a society have a bunch of lame duck dads that shirk  their responsibility to their wife and kids, and “go their own way…”….I promise you that has a much greater societal impact than this issue.

Not ALL dads (Just like not all men make more than women). But if you look at the percentage of single mother households in this country, you’ll see there’s a LOT of men who are leaving it to the state (Or grandparents) to fill in the shoes they should be filling.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by  Belle Rose. Reason: typos

[_Robert_Participant]

Ivy is right. In fact, most men focus on what they do, not who they are. In many ways women are not as foolish as men. They do care more about relationships. Men pay dearly for that extra X % of salary. Just listen to the TED talk in Sunday School.

[StregaModerator]

Ivy: “There’s other things we need to fix first”

Are you suggesting we can only do one thing at a time?

[Belle RoseParticipant]

Based on our current track record I don’t think we can even do one thing at a time. Not as a collective whole anyway.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by  Belle Rose.

[Belle RoseParticipant]

Ivy is right. In fact, most men focus on what they do, not who they are.

The kinds of questions that we should be asking are not whether or not women are capable of competing with men at the highest level and highest paying jobs (Which pretty much always require you to work… And nothing else) 80+ hours a week. The question should be more like why are there a small percentage of men out there who want to… It is always at the expense of their families. Guess who picks up the slack at home? Their partner….

I know a man who lived two states away from his family because he was competing in a high-level job. He got to the top very quickly because he was available 24 seven and he was always able to say yes, and never had any excuses to say no. All of his distractions were removed from him. He made and still does make a lot of money… But he also sacrifices a LOT to be where he is.

If I didn’t have any distractions, and I could move all my problems to states over, I could totally have competed with him. Is it because I am female that that is the case? Well… No. It’s because I’m a mom. And I’ve chosen not to put my career before my child. Some women do. Then it’s their live-in Au Pair that raises their kid.

When you have a child, raising that child is a full-time job for someone. You can’t get out of that. Most of the time it’s their mother. That’s the way it should be.

[DavisModerator]

I’m really fascinated by your claim that gender wage disparity isnt ALL about gender. I’m curious what possible factor outside of gender would explain gender discrimination.

IQ, personality traits, personal family life style preferences, learning disabilities or lack there of, mental health diagnoses or lack there of, motivation, learning styles, geographic location, economy, childhood environment/upbringing/socialization….I could go on but this is just a sample to get us started.

I’m super confused here, because the whole conversation was about people doing the very same work and getting the same results, and yet women get paid less. This is well documented. There is no argumement that this happens except in the mind of deniers. So when it comes to why are women being discriminated against, getting a total bum deal in these cases? When you suggested there was something more than just gender differences I was pretty amazed. I though there might be something interesting. But you just listed other factors that explain why various people with various skills are paid differently. I can only imagine that you DO NOT mean to say that women are less intelligent, less educated have less pedigree, less ability to work long hours, less ability to have leadership skills etc. So I don’t know what exactly you are trying to say here. Yes, it is without a doubt that there are a variety of reasons why people get paid more or less than others. However when you put two groups of people together whose only difference is which chromozone they have or skin colour or sexuality, and you can find a SYSTEMATIC inequality on how they are paid despite doing the same work/quality/output etc, then the only thing that can possibly explain this is an underlying discrimination. Done on purpose? I think by very few. Happens anyways? Clearly it does. Should this be addressed before we address other things? Well that depends, are you a human being who has been discriminated against? Have you been screwed out of money because you have brown skin? Or because you don’t have a penis? None of this matters in any case. No one can possibly deal with these problems until people can admit that there just might be an actual problem here. Despite all the information you need to make a reasoned judgement, people refuse to even believe that this might be possible. How can we deal with any form of wage discrimination or disparities or unfair opportunism or cronyism or corruption if the people who benefit from it, the people who can change policy or influence that change, refuse to believe its a real problem without superfluous excuses? IQ doesn’t explain why a woman in a call centre with an excelent customer satisfaction record and high call rate per hour makes less than a man with lower records and qualifications. Nor does which university they went to nor eye colour nor moon sign nor if their parents are married or divorced. The only thing that explains that clear and outrageous salary disparity is their genitals. Which is a very bad reason.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by  PopeBeanie. Reason: bq fix

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